Tag: keyboardnotes

Every St Patrick’s Day, I play the Lucky Penny game with my students. This is not my original idea, and you can find the original brief instructions at Sing a New Song. It is a very simple game to review notes on the staff. I particularly like it because it isn’t just a drill of finding the note name. They also have to connect it through to the correct note on the piano. I always have some students who are great at naming the note, but still have no clue which octave they ought to be playing it in. This game helps.

What You Need:

Flashcards with the notes you want to review

As many pennies as you have flashcards. One (or more) should be marked on one side in some way as the lucky one.

I use Euro pennies. My American students are always delighted by how small they are and the fact that they really are Irish pennies. Of course, if you don’t have a source for Euro pennies, any other small coin works just fine.

My lucky penny has a sticker of a four leaf clover.

How to Play:

Since I am not the originator of the game, I will just direct you to Sing a New Song to get the instructions on how to play.

My modifications are as follows:

I only have one lucky penny, not 2-5. If they have to go through two full octaves to find the penny, I don’t consider that a bad thing. It’s just more practice.

I don’t give out candy, since I try to keep that at an absolute minimum. If they aren’t expecting candy, students are still interested in seeing how lucky they are (i.e., how quickly they find the lucky penny).

Variations:

To make it easier or shorter, limit the number of notes you ask.

To make it harder, don’t have them remove the penny on the note on the staff. Instead pick an interval and require them to remove the penny a third above or a fourth below the note on the staff. You can then ask them to name whether that interval is major, minor, diminished, etc.

I have yet to have a student who can remember the definition of an interval (the distance between two notes). They sputter a bit, and I sigh and say, “Okay, play me a fourth.” That they can do.

Understanding intervals is not just great music theory, it also is enormously helpful in reading music. Your brain doesn’t have to process all the note names if it knows the relationships between the notes.

For this activity, I am indebted to Teach Piano Today for a great little free printable called Wintervals. It’s a lovely idea for private lessons in January, and their instructions are fun. I played it differently, in several different ways, as you can see below.

I drew one up on cardstock in about 30 seconds. Teach Piano Today recommends a mini-marshmallow. Anything would work.

One die

I used a ten-sided one, but you could use a regular one.

Staff paper/pencil or giant staff/manipulatives (optional)

Setup:

Place the game piece above the first square (“A”).

How to Play on the Keyboard:

Roll the dice. That number specifies what interval you need to play. The bottom note should be the letter on the square your game piece is on (A for the first turn). For example, if the die says 3, play A and C because that makes a third.

My 10-sided die included a 0. If they rolled that it meant teacher gets to pick the interval.

If the student plays the interval wrong, the game piece moves up one space. If correct, the student can choose between moving up one or two spaces. That choice is pretty important because if the game piece lands on a hot spot, she melts and goes back to the beginning.

Repeat until the game piece makes it to the finish line.

Talking points along the way, depending on the level of the student:

Which intervals sound pretty?

Which intervals sound harsh?

Which intervals are so important they have a special name? (1=unison; 8=octave)

Which intervals sound harsh but could be resolved into something pretty? (7th to 8th, 2nd to 3rd, etc.)

How many half steps are contained within the interval?

Is the interval major or minor?

How to Play on the Staff:

Follow the same instructions as above, but instead of playing the notes, draw them on staff paper or place manipulatives on a giant staff.

Talking points along the way, depending on the level of the student:

Odd numbered intervals always go from line to line or space to space.

Even numbered intervals have a line and a space.

Knowing intervals allows you to correctly place notes on ledger lines, even if you don’t know what the name of the note is.

How to Play Backwards on Either Keyboard or Staff:

Alternatively, you could also skip the number die entirely. Instead, have the student draw letters A-G out of a bag. Then they play or write the start note from the Wintervals sheet, play or write the note from the bag, and name the interval the two notes make.

I cut mine out of scrapbooking paper so they were already in cute patterns.

If you want to be able to reuse it for multiple purposes, laminate everything. Otherwise, don’t bother.

Flashcards with the notes of the staff.

Some kind of timer (only needed for version 2)

Setup:

Write on the back of the feathers. (Use a whiteboard marker if you laminated.)

About three should say “Teacher Loses a Turn”

About three should say “Freebie”

Half of the rest should say “N” for name the note.

All of the rest should say “P” for play the note.

Lay out your turkey on the floor.

How to Play (Version 1, the competitive way):

The first player plucks a feather from the turkey and draws a note flashcard.

If the feather says “N,” the player should name the note on the flashcard.

If it says “P,” the player should play the note on the piano.

If it says “Freebie,” they get the feather for free.

Take turns until the turkey is completely plucked. Count the feathers to see who has the most.

The teacher loses a turn cards guarantee that the student will always have more. None of my kids picked up on this.

How to Play (Version 2, the timed way):

With input from the student, determine how long the student will need to completely pluck the turkey. (The amount of time varied from 1 to 5 minutes, depending on the level of the student and the number of feathers on the turkey.)

When the timer starts, the student plucks one feather at a time and plays or names the note. In this version, the teacher loses a turn feathers are just like a freebie feather.

(Occasionally, I surreptitiously stop the timer while they aren’t looking to make sure they finish in time.)

Here is a Halloween-themed way to review the notes while creating a decoration for your studio. It’s sure to thrill kids. Except for my own daughter, who said it was creepy and she didn’t want to touch the eyeballs. Other than her, everyone loved it.

What You Need:

A set of monster eyeballs. These are available at dollar stores around Halloween.

A bag big enough to hold your monster eyeballs.

A clear vase, bowl, or other container.

Flashcards or a sheet of piano music.

Setup:

Before the lesson, use a permanent marker to write note names on each of the eyeballs.

Put all the eyeballs in the bag.

If you’re using flashcards, lay them out face up, but not in order.

How to Play:

The student reaches in the bag and draws out an eyeball.

The student then looks through the flashcards or sheet music and finds a note that matches the letter on the eyeball.

If they correctly find the match, the student can add the eyeball to the vase to add to your Halloween decorations.

Variations:

For pre-readers, have them play the note on the piano instead of looking for it on the staff.

For readers who haven’t yet learned all the notes, limit the flashcards to the ones they have learned. You may also want to use treble clef notes separately from bass clef notes.

For more advanced readers, use flashcards or music with lots of ledger lines, or you can require them to find not the note on the eyeball, but a note that is a third above that note (or a fifth or whatever).

Two keyboard sheets* printed out and laminated or put in a sheet protector

Whiteboard markers, preferably in a variety of colors

Setup:

Shuffle the cards.

Each player should label Middle C with a whiteboard marker.

How to Play:

The first player draws a card and names the interval. Once you have named it, color in the entire interval (meaning the top note, the bottom note, and all notes in between) on your keyboard. This ends the turn.

The second player follows the same process.

If you have already colored in some or all of the notes contained in the interval on the card, you can color in an equivalent interval anywhere else on the keyboard. For example, if you draw a fourth from middle C to F, but you’ve already colored those notes, you can draw a fourth from G to B above it.

If your keyboard is so full you cannot find an equivalent interval, color in the largest interval you can find and name it.